Venkatachalaiah underlines importance of education

Mysore, Jan 8 (UNI) Former Chief Justice of India Mr Justice M N Venkatachalaiah today said the profound task of education was the search of unity that underlies and connects intellect and intuition, science and spirituality, and scientific phenomena and mystic experience.

Delivering the seventh annual convocation address of the Karnataka Open University here, he said the distance education mode had a great future, with the emergence of technologies for virtual class rooms and holographic imaging. Distance education had in a sense revolutionised higher education. The spread was wide, but range, depth and quality need constant attention and upgrading.

Imaginative combination of courses made for synergy as subjects like earth sciences might be combined with ecology, oceanography, forestry and water resource management.

Mr Justice Venkatachalaiah said education, it used to be said, is for life and not for a 'living', but today its for both. It should bring out the best in a person and also make use of that 'best' for making the life of fellowmen 'better'.

In a world of constant industrial and technological innovations, a staganat educational system, which was not capable of rapid and intelligent response to change, might find itself pushed to a corner. Though 21st century was touted as the century of China and India, forecasts say the USA would continue to retain its economic, technological and military superiority even by 2020 because universities and centres of scientific research in the West were intellectual powerhouses, he said.

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